


We Can Be Heroes

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: No one ever said this life would be simple [27]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Graham O'Brien is a Badass, Homophobia, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-19 09:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: Two times that someone other than the Doctor saved the day.





	1. Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How's your entailment getting along?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, I've had the idea for the first ficlet of this three ficlet cluster for a while and finally got around to writing it. I'm still deciding what to do for the next two but I'm open to ideas.

It had been a long week for Team TARDIS. They had rescued Amelia Earhart from Pterodactyls, explored the depth of the sea with Captain Nemo (who was apparently not fictional after all) and had tea with the Queen of Pluto. The last adventure had gone terribly wrong when Yaz made the mistake of mentioning to temperamental queen that in her time Pluto had been reclassified as a planetoid. They barely escaped with their lives. 

Now they were all collapsed in a booth of their favorite local pub in Sheffield close to Graham and Ryan’s flat. It was one of those dusty old places where every piece of furniture was well worn  and faded. It had been where he and Grace used to come when neither had the energy for a more elaborate outing. It was the sort of place you could show up at still wearing your work clothes, run into a friend or two, and be gently shooed out at the end of the evening to those familiar words, “hurry up please it's time.”

Graham hadn’t come back for half a year after he lost Grace. He still only did when he had Ryan or the others with him, otherwise the memories were just too much. Even now, sitting with is friends, he could almost feel the warmth of Grace’s shoulder against his own, hear the soft murmur of her voice. 

His heart knotted a little when he looked over towards the table by the window. For an instant, he could again see Grace standing on it still wearing her surgical scrubs, a pint in her hand and her voice raised in song. It had begun as such a terrible night and ended so wonderfully. 

Grace had come home red eyed and exhausted. She’s just found out that a child who had been coming in for chemo for over year had died suddenly from complications. She’d told Graham to get her out of their flat so he did. Once on the street they’d followed the sounds of a fiddle and bodhran down to the pub where a visiting Irish band was in full swing, propped up with a bit of local talent. 

At first Grace had just sat quietly drinking, but eventually even she began to tap her foot. The music got louder and wilder and the light came back into Grace’s beautiful eyes and a smile to her lips. She and Graham had danced a few turns with the other drunken old fools in the pub. 

Near the end of the evening, a young woman from the crowd asked the band if she could  sing. When they agreed she hopped up onto a table. When she finished Grace asked her for a hand up. The young woman obliged before hopping down. Grace stood on that table and gave a truly impressive rendition of The Parting Glass. She had one of those voices that never really worked in recordings but live could send tremors through the soul. 

Graham shook his head and the present sunk back down around him. The corner table sat covered in empty pint glasses. Across from him Yaz yawned impressively. The Doctor slipped an around her and pulled her closer, careful of her arm that was still in a sling. 

“You two already ready to pack it in?” Graham asked. Generally he was the one who got sleepy or dozed off in random places.

“Nah, I’m good for another pint,” said Yaz. 

“I’ll get the round then,” offer Ryan standing. 

Graham levered himself to his feet. “I’d best come as well son. It never ends well when you try to carry more than two glasses.”

They were returning to their table, each with a pint in both hands when Graham noticed that two very drunk looking young men were standing beside the booth. 

“Lezzies!” 

“Yea fuck off, you dykes ain't welcome here.”

With her arm broken,Yaz wasn't going to be able to easily defend herself if things got ugly and the Doctor was trapped between Yaz, the table and the wall. To protect Yaz, she’d have to jump up or even climb over her and that would leave them both vulnerable. 

“Leave us alone,” Yaz spoke in the sharp authoritative tone she normally used when she was wearing her uniform.

“Why should we bitch?” threatened the younger of the two men. “You’re the pervert going around snogging a woman in public.”

Ryan set down his drinks and clenched his hands. Graham put down his own so he could grab his grandson’s arm to stop him from doing something stupid. 

“No, let me handle it.”

“Grandad!”

“Trust me, I’m scarier to those young men than you are.” 

Things were already escalating even as Yaz tried to calm things. “Trust me, you don’t want to be threatening an off duty police officer. Just go.”

“They let a paki dyke like you into the police?”

Yaz’s patience snapped. “They let a homophobic asshole like you into this pub?”

The young man took a step closer, his hand clenched. 

The Doctor reached for her screwdriver. “Don’t you dare even think about it!”

Graham grabbed the back of the drunken fools coat. “What do you think your doing lad?”

The young man turned, clenched first raised. Ryan moved to stand at his grandfather’s back.

Graham didn’t flinch and the young man lowered his hand when she saw he was looking at a man old enough to be his grandfather. Then his pride caught him again and he scowled resentfully. “I’m just telling these lezzies to get out of my pub.”

“It’s not your pub lad. It belongs to Mrs.Chadwick over there behind the bar. She’s run it since her husband died ten years ago.”

That briefly confused the drunk. His friend finally decided to contribute to the ugly encounter. “Yea, well it’s still in our neighborhood and we don’t want these dykes here.”

“It’s their neighborhood too and they have as much right to be here as anywhere. I’ll thank you not to use that kind of language either.”

“I’ll say what I want,” snared the youth.

Graham threw down his ace. “Does your mother know that you go around insulting and threatening women in bars?” 

“What’s my mom got to do with it?” 

“Probably quite a bit soon enough if I tell her. I’m sure she’ll have some choice things to say to you on the matter.”

“You don’t know who my mom is!”

Graham raised an eyebrow. “Her name is Mrs. Evans, I just saw her last Sunday at the 11:00 am service. Charming woman, she was bragging about how her son just got a job with the council maintenance department. She showed off a picture of you in your new orange reflective vest.”

The young man's eyes went wide.

Graham pressed the advantage, turning the other drunk youth. “Your father runs the hardware store on 5th street. How do you think he’d like to know his son goes about menacing ladies just trying to have a night out.” 

Both boys stared at him.

“Go home lads. You’ve both had a bit too much to drink. Come back when you remember the good manners you were raised with.”

One young man tugged on the other’s sleeve. “Come on. I never liked this place anyway.” They departed quickly and as the door thumped behind them the rest of the pub let out a breath of relief.

Graham and Ryan retrieved the drinks and sunk into the booth. 

“Graham O’Brien,” declared the Doctor. “You never ceased to amaze me.”

He gave her a smile. 

Ryan was less convinced. “They could have hit you Grandad.”

“Then they would have hit an old man in the middle of a pub. You can image how that would have looked.”

Ryan still looked less than convinced. 

Graham let out a tired breath. “Think about it. If you came to Yaz and the Doctor’s defense, those boys wouldn’t have hesitated to throw a punch at you and it would have ended in a fight.”

“I could have held my own, even with the dyspraxia.” He didn’t sound like truly believed himself though. He’d tried to take boxing lessons once as a kid, Grace had thought it might improve his balance. Instead all he’d managed was to learn that he nearly always overbalanced and fell on his face whenever he tried to throw a punch. That revelation had led him to wisely avoid fights whenever he could for the rest of his childhood. He’d gotten tall early and that had helped.

“Maybe but the police would have been called. Sheffield isn’t the United States but its still not a safe place for a young black man to be arrested. No offense to your profession Yaz.”

She shrugged. “I know some of the codgers I work with, you’re not wrong.”

They all sipped at their drinks despondently. After a bit Graham said. “So Doc, I’ve got to ask, since I saw you drawing your sonic, what were you going to do with it? You’ve said before that it’s not a weapon.”

“Neither is a shield. I was going to make both their phones start blasting YMCA by the Village People. I figured that would confuse and distract them sufficiently. If that didn’t work I was going to try scaring them off with some carefully aimed and painfully loud sound waves.

“I’d have liked to see that,” admitted Ryan. 

“I can still make the bar speakers play it if you want,” said the Doctor.

“Of your could go politely ask Mrs.Chadwick to put it on. It is her bar,” said Graham without any real censure.

The Doctor went and did just that. 

On the walk back Yaz linked her good arm with the Doctors and leaned against her. “When do people get over it?”

“Which ‘it’ exactly?”

“Homophobia, racism, religious intolerance, misogyny  all of the ias, isms, ances, and nys I guess.”

“They never really do, at least not completely. As soon as humans grow past one hatred they tend to find another.” 

“That sucks.”  

“It’s still worth fighting. Human history if full of brighter moments and times. I’ve never been sure if those are when humans rise above themselves or simply become their true selves.”

Yaz nudged her. “An eternal optimist you are, my love.”

“That is what my long life and travels have made me.”

“Not just a cranky old lady?”

“Can’t I be both?”

“Of course.” 

They walked back to the TARDIS through the chill early spring night, a few steps behind their friends. 

 


	2. The Once and Future Pilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Tardis find themselves in need of someone who's never had their heart broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the last considerably more serious ficlet I decided to go totally silly with this one. This one turned out rather odd but I decided to post it anyway.

**_Only one who’s heart is whole_ **

**_Never broken or reborn_ **

**_By the joy and agony of romantic love_ **

**_May lift this sword_ **

 

Yaz was struck once again by just how bad the TARDIs was at translating poetry. It didn’t help that “romantic love” kept flickering and appearing as just “love” every other second as if there were some question which version the word actually meant. She was also somewhat concerned by the hordes of skeletons slowly working their way up the narrow mountain path towards the shrine she and her friends were currently occupying.

They had begun their quest on the somewhat questionable advice of an old woman with very few teeth who swore that there was a magical sword in a shrine on the mountain that could end the current undead plague sweeping the land. Apparently a “Chosen One,” who would arrive in a magic blue box and could put the dead back into the earth by drawing a magic sword.

The Doctor was a bit dubious of the whole prophecy business but the somewhat middle ages technology level lost human colony of Rapion Five was definitely having issues with its dead not staying properly dead. The Doctor somewhat suspected that if there was a specific prophecy involving her, one of her former nemesis might be at work and she’d best investigate.

That had been a great plan until an entire army of skeletons, most with considerably more remaining bone and gristle that the The 7th Voyage of Sinbad would have suggested, began to pursue them. They had also found the temple guarded by terrifying flying wraith like creatures that the Doctor was able to scare off with a brilliant light from her screwdriver.

It was a bizarre place, as pretty much anything built by the descendants of human colonists who’d forgotten earth, tended to be. The entire temple was carved out of the stone like Al Khazneh except it had more of a Greek architectural style. As for the carvings...well Yaz really had no idea what all the penguins were about.

Now they were faced with a sword in an altar and a truly bizarre inscription. Graham was the first to speak.

“If we were supposed to bring a virgin, someone really should have mentioned that before we trudged up all those winding steps. With all those skeletons blocking the way, we can’t just pop back to that weird village and find one.”

“I don’t think that’s what is means,” said the Doctor squinting and looking closer at the inscription. Her right hand was still held high with a buzzing screwdriver, keeping them all safe within a circle of light that threw back the hovering black temple wraiths. “I think it’s talking about love.”

“More like someone who’s never had their heart broken,” said Yaz, frowning as the still shifting inscription.

Graham cast her a worried glance. “I’m out and I’m guessing the Doctor is too. Yaz, you ever get your heartbroken before you met the Doctor?”

That got a nearly hysterical laugh from Yaz, perhaps it was just the pressure of hearing the steady stomping of the skeleton hordes. The broken rope bridge and the locked sanctum door would hold them for a bit but not forever.

“I stayed away from my mosque for ages because seeing my ex-girlfriend upset me so much I always had to go have a cry in the coat closet. I went through a weird phase where I started writing letters to her and then tearing them up before I could send them for weeks after the breakup.”

“Ryan?” asked Graham.

The young electrical engineer in training got something of a deer in the headlights look to him. “Um…”

“Didn’t you and that lovely beta engineer on the pirate ship have a thing?” asked Yaz.”

She couldn’t possibly embarrassed her friend more if she’d tried.

He ducked his head down. “I did but it wasn’t love. I liked her a lot but you know... ” Almost defensively he added, “And I’ve only seen her a couple times, even I know love takes longer than that to grow. Before her I just never really saw anyone all that seriously.”

There was a loud pounding sound as the skeletons, who had clearly found a way over the chasm had started on the inner sanctum door.

The Doctor grabbed Ryan’s arm. “Right, good enough. Ryan Sinclair, you and your unbroken heart are exactly what we need right now. Grab the sword.”

Looking very uncertain he stepped up to the altar and grabbed the hilt of a sword that bore a surprisingly resemblance to a B-movie version of Excalibur and tugged. It glowed with a blue light.

That was when the door burst open and the skeletons began to pile in. The moment would have been considerably more dramatic if the light had not begun to scan Ryan as a robotic voice said, “Scanning. Scanning. Operator match found, initiating shutdown sequence.”

All around them the skeletons collapsed in bony and sinewy piles. Oddly enough the walls began to flicker, suddenly they were standing in what appeared to be the very dusty bridge of a large bad eighties movie esque cargo ship. Instead of a sword, Ryan was holding something that looked a lot more like a remote control.

“Ryan, your brilliant! You saved us.” The Doctor hugged the startled young man before turning her attention to their surroundings. “Oh its a Gamma 2500 Cruiser, I love Gamma 2500 Cruisers." She ran around and started trying to tap at keys and buttons but nothing happened. That led her to pout.

Yaz couldn’t help but notice how cute the Doctor was when she pouted, she had such a wonderful way of scrunching up her nose.

“Doc, maybe it will respond to Ryan.” Graham suggested.

“Right, Ryan, can you put your hand on the console where there is a hand print.”

He did and a shudder ran through him. His eyes went completely blank. “Doctor, I think the ship is talking to me.”

“What’s she saying?”

“It’s hard to tell, she’s all weird and rambly. It sounds like she’s the original colony ship, she’s been watching over them for thousands of years, even after everyone forgot about her or even that they came from somewhere else. A bad fever hit the colony last year and she tried to release nanobots to cure it but something went really wrong and they started re-animating the dead.”

“Ah, well tell her not to do that again.”

“She says she won’t. She say she can fix her medical algorithm if she scans me.” He was briefly bathed in more blue light and then the focus returned to his eyes. All around them the temple re-appeared.

It was a very long walk back, especially as the rope bridge was out and they had to use a different passage to get out. As they walked along Ryan asked. “So, I’m still confused why a colony ship could only be controlled someone who’d never gotten their heart broken. That just sounds like a poorly written script.”

“Yea, by the standards of our usual adventures that’s a little ridiculous,” said Yaz.

“That’s easy,” explained the Doctor “Gamma 2500 Cruisers were always piloted by a sort of specially genetically engineered bio androids. They were specially designed to only react to their pilots so the ships couldn’t be stolen.”

“I am definitely not an android,” said Ryan. “I’m pretty sure I’d have better coordination if I did.”

“Good observation,” said the Doctor and meant it. “Anyway, I read all about this once. A huge flaw with the Gamma 2500 Cruisers was that they were actually easy to hijack if you had the right pilot. The original designers tried to make a shortcut in the bio-recognition software. They’d specifically designed the androids to be biologically almost identical to humans but incapable of romantic love, so they just designed the ship to respond to someone who'd never felt that emotion. It was a very bad idea, you don’t want to know how many times a child or just a really unsentimental person was able to steal one.”

Graham actually snorted, “Because just using a password would be far too easy.”

“Or a genetic scanner. We’ve seen ton of those in our travels,” added Yaz.

The Doctor shrugged. “Hey, it’s your species who designed the Gamma 2500 Cruisers, not mine. You lot also designed the Triumph Mayflower.”

“Don’t even start,” said Graham. “Your species just runs around in ships shaped like police boxes and phone boxes and garden sheds.”

The Doctor grinned at him, “Nah, that’s just my family.”

Yaz putting an arm around the Doctor’s waist, pecking her on the cheek as they emerged into the sunlight. “You’ve told me before yours is a police box because your chameleon circuit is stuck. You telling me you come from a line of rubbish engineers?”

“No comment.”

 


End file.
